stopAcquisition

StopAcquisition is a term used in data acquisition and instrument control to describe the action of halting an ongoing data capture process. It is commonly exposed as a function, method, or command in device firmware and software libraries for hardware such as cameras, oscilloscopes, spectrometers, and laboratory instruments. The primary goal of stopAcquisition is to terminate data collection in a controlled manner, ensuring that resources are properly released and that any in-progress data is handled safely.

In typical usage, stopAcquisition can be invoked after a measurement run completes, in response to a user request, or when an error or timeout occurs. The call often triggers a sequence of steps: stopping the acquisition triggers, finalizing or discarding the current buffer contents as appropriate, flushing or saving captured data, and releasing hardware resources such as DMA channels, memory buffers, or file handles. Depending on the implementation, stopAcquisition may be synchronous (blocking until the operation finishes) or asynchronous (signaling completion via an event or callback).

Considerations when using stopAcquisition include the need to ensure the system is in a safe state before reconfiguring hardware, checking for successful termination, and handling partially captured data. Some systems distinguish between stopping immediately (abort or halt) and stopping gracefully (complete current frame or buffer). There may also be related commands such as pauseAcquisition, resumeAcquisition, or abortAcquisition, each with different semantics.

See also: data acquisition, acquisition, trigger, buffer management, device API. The exact name and behavior of stopAcquisition can vary by vendor or platform, and alternative names or variants are common across different APIs.